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JUNE HARVEST 

and Other Poems 



LEON E. DANIELS 



BURLINGTON, VERMONT 
THE FREE PRESS PRINTING COMPANY 

1923 


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Copyright, 19 23, 
by L. E. Daniels 


DEC 21 *23 


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In Affectionate Remembrance 
of My Mother 
Lucinda Boardman Daniels 
Whose Loving Counsel Fostered 
and Whose Daily Life Exemplified 
Whatever is True and Good and Beautiful 
in Its Pages 

This Volume is Inscribed 













Preface 

To assiduous readers of the University Cynic and the 
Ariel of a quarter century ago, many of the poems that 
follow will not be new, except as certain corrections and 
revision have made them so; several have appeared in 
other periodicals, and others are here printed for the first 
time. 

It has always been a favorite theory of the author 
that the verse lover who reads with sympathy and under¬ 
standing shares, to a certain degree at least, in the creative 
j oy of the poet. The poet, at his best, creates; the reader 
recreates. If, then, the alumni of the University of Ver¬ 
mont, and the larger body of graduates (and undergrad¬ 
uates) of the State, around both of which institutions the 
interest of these unpretentious poems chiefly centers, shall 
derive from reading, a fraction of the pleasure that the 
author found in writing them, he will feel well rewarded 
for the time and labor involved in publication, and justified 
in an undertaking which their intrinsic merit alone would 
hardly have warranted. 

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Mr. Julius A. 
Tellier, of the class of 1902, to Mr. Chas. R. Cummins 
and to Mr. Winthrop Cortelyou, for permission to reprint 
titles that originally appeared, respectively, in the Ver¬ 
mont Song Book, the Vermonter and ’L’Allegro. Repro¬ 
ductions have also been made from Vermont Verse, com¬ 
piled by Russell Wales Taft (deceased), of the class of 
1898, the Waverley Magazine and the Boston Budget, it 
having been found impossible, however, to locate the pres¬ 
ent owners of the respective copyrights. 

New Dorp, Staten Island, N. Y. 

June 30, 1923. 
















Index to Titles 


Alumni ad Seniores. 20 

Anniversary Lines. 21 

Autumn Pastels. 44 

Autumn Woods. 47 

Beloved’s Nearness, The. 69 

Centennial Hymn. 80 

Christmas Eve. 10 

Class Poem. 67 

Close the Book and Let the Breeze. 82 

Cradle Song. 70 

Cuba Libre. 15 

December Roses. 11 

Doing Things Well. 24 

First Bobolink, The. 12 

Flight of the Birds, The. 79 

Fortune Telling. 25 

Golden Rod. 26 

Green and the Gold, The. 45 

Home Port, The. 74 

June Harvest. 9 

Justin S. Morrill. 82 

Last of the Manisees, The. 16 

Lines to An April Lady. 75 

Love at First Sight. 81 

Love Letter, A. 83 

May. . . .. 87 

Nachgefiihl. 42 

New Year, The. 69 

October in New England. 43 

Opportunity. 1® 

Our Allen. 84 

Pilgrim, The. 18 


7 


































Poet’s Recipe, A. 15 

Ring of Polycrates, The. 29 

Sehnsucht. 42 

Serenade, The. 35 

“Shut Ins,” The. 41 

Skate Homeward, The. 46 

Smoky Spell, The. 78 

Song of Home, A. 48 

Sonnet. 54 

Sonnet. 66 

Sub-Prefect Afield, The. 76 

Summer Rain. 71 

Sun Dial, The. 36 

Swim Homeward, The. 53 

Temple Building. 11 

To A Sweetheart. 65 

To An Old Volume of “The Knickerbocker”. 49 

To Grenville Dean Wilson. 52 

To Lucius Sextius. 28 

To Mercury. 51 

To the Boers at War. 65 

To the Distant Loved One. 52 

To the Soldier Students. 41 

Two Sweethearts. 53 

Uncle Hiram Attends A Football Game. 55 

Vacationing at Harvard. 39 

When the Tide Is Low. 78 



8 
































“Where the impetuous pond brook gushes 
Fieldwardy 1 mid swaying reeds and rushes " 










June Harvest and Other Poems 

JUNE HARVEST 

When maiden June demure first dowers Mother Earth, 
Who gave her birth. 

With that rare beauty which, when winds untangle 
Her wandering tresses’ gold, makes glad revealing, 

Her starry eyes o’erblown with many a spangle 
Of sunny buttercups, the elf goes softly stealing 
To some flower-margined woodland pool 
And, viewing her image in its waters cool, 

Blushes to find than all the beauty there. 

Herself more fair. 

Or when, more queenly grown, ’mid blossoming clover, 
She greets her lover, 

The ardent Summer, athirst for cooling fountains 
And scent of hay, cloyed with the jasmine flower. 

In many a shady stream his brow she laves. 

Or in far lakes amid the murmuring waves. 

Or in the forest dews of pine-clad mountains; 

Then, soothingly, in some sequestered bower. 

His loneliness charms away, the while he lays his 
Enraptured self among the nodding daisies. 

And soon his dazzled eyes in slumber closes 
’Neath showers of roses. 

What time the farmer in Vermont’s rich meadows, 

O’er flecked with shadows 
From those aerial argosies whose fleecy pinions 
Majestic float across the sunlit azure. 

Sharpens his scythe and scans his green dominions 
Where first to cut his hay-mow’s fragrant treasure— 

9 


The timorous buttercups, herd’s grass, bee-haunted clover, 
And, where the impetuous pond brook gushes 
Fieldward, mid swaying reeds and rushes, 

The lush swale grass; while irises, leaning over 
The murmuring flood, the green expanses leaven 
With blue of heaven. 

So shall the poet weave thee now a garland 
From that lost, far land, 

The June of life, whence yet fresh winds are blowing, 
Tempering the August heat. What recollections 
Of fadeless hours, what long foregone affections, 

What after deeds from that seed-time outgrowing, 

What griefs, what joys, what longings past believing 
Blend in its weaving! 

Perchance shall here no immortelle, no flower everlasting 
Brave Winter’s blasting; 

But such as by lone roads, by hedge or river. 

Near Nature’s heart, to summer winds surrender 
For a brief time their meed of cheer and fragrance, 
Content, ere they shall wither, on some tender, 

Warm breast to nestle, or to win a stray glance 
From friendly eyes—contented, too, the giver, 

If so be that some loving heart shall cherish 
The songs that perish. 

CHRISTMAS EVE 

’Twas Christmas Eve; and o’er the waters’ breast 
Where eddying waves their soft, low carols sung— 
Sung as of old, when Christmas hours were young, 
Their joyous anthems to the Heavenly Guest— 

A beam of light shot from the darkening west 
And o’er the lake a golden pathway flung, 

In crimson folds the sunset clouds o’erhung 
And on the earth the kiss of evening pressed. 

10 


’Twas thus perchance by far-off Galilee 
Where walked the gentle Christ at Christmas-tide 
And heard the waves low murmuring at his side 
Their greeting to His glad nativity. 

Did parting light o’er hills Judean shine 
And rest in beauty on the Face Divine. 


DECEMBER ROSES 

In many a quiet country room, 

Within the city’s crowded closes, 

They fill our wintry days with bloom, 

The gay December roses. 

On faded cheeks I see them glow, 

Whereo’er Time sets his mantle hoary, 
Like the quick blush that, years ago, 
Flamed at the old, sweet story. 

On one dear face, whose mantling hue 
At our late parting I remember 
The fairest of thy roses strew, 

O wind of bleak December. 

And Heaven, so kind to her in June, 

Whate’er the changeful year discloses, 
Make bright her life’s late afternoon 
With love’s December roses. 


TEMPLE BUILDING 

We all are temple-builders, and each day 

Swift as the seasons, noiseless as the stir 
Of angels’ pinions, mar them though we may, 
Rise the eternal walls of character. 


11 


THE FIRST BOBOLINK 


Light-hearted minstrel whose song now, whose motion 
Gladden the fields, newly waked by the sun, 

Hither thou wing’st through the calm upper ocean 
Swiftly thy course ere the springtime be done. 
Heardst thou when still, its warm breath on thy pinions, 
The wind of the southland besought thee to stay. 
Low calling thee back from proud Summer’s dominions 
The far-distant, tremulous voices of May? 

Gay was thy life there, thou roguish despoiler, 

Small thanks to thee that thy life e’er was spared; 
Thy marauding raids have the sun-browned toiler 
Cost nearly his rice crop, reluctantly shared, 

Then, like a harlequin, in changes robes thou wingest 
Northward thy flight, and ’tis hardly begun 
Ere thy mute throat gushes forth and thou singest 
Post-prandial lays till the haven is won. 

Hadst ne’er a regret as thy loved Carolinas, 

Their palms and their rice-fields were left far behind? 
Yet why shouldst thou e’er after past joys repine as 
Thou speddest away ever sweeter to find? 

Long was thy journey and, through the blue distance. 
Long ere New England’s rock-slopes issued forth, 
Still on was thy course till, with patient insistence, 

At last rose before thee the hills of the North. 

Without thy gay flute-notes to tell us the season, 

Scarce should we, I ween, ’mid our toils and our cares, 
E’er notice its beauty, or sense the glad reason 
For all the mad rapture thy melody bears— 

And thief as thou wert, for such artless outlawry. 

Thou plumed Robin Hood, where’s the judge could 
indict ? 

Thou bringest us peace and new hopes—’twere a sorry 

And barren springtime by thy song ne’er made bright. 

12 


OPPORTUNITY 


One night I dreamed, outside my open door 

An angel stood, in heavenly splendor dressed, 
Gems of rare beauty at her side she wore, 

A crown of gleaming pearls her forehead pressed; 

And in her outstretched hands there met my gaze 
A garland wrought of diamonds so bright 
They drove away the heavy shades of night 

With the pure brilliance of their dazzling rays. 

“Arise and take,” the vision softly said, 

“ ‘Tis thine to use, for good or ill, today”— 
But I, half-doubting, turned aside my head 
And, lo, the splendor slowly died away. 

At last the morning broke; his hapless lot 

I heard the beggar mourn in tones of woe. 

While from the mingled calls to work below 

A voice said, “This thy crown; refuse it not.” 


THE PILGRIM 

From the German of Schiller 

Far back in life's joyous Maytime, 

Did I the wanderer’s lot espouse. 
All the sports of youth’s glad playtime. 
Left I in my father’s house. 

All my birthright, loved belongings, 
Cheerfully did I resign; 

Boyhood, still, with all its longings 

And the pilgrim’s staff were mine. 

13 


For a mighty hope upbore me 

And a mystic faith was mine— 

“Mount/’ it bade, “the way before thee. 
Till its farthest heights are thine.” 

“Till thou reach a golden portal, 

Where arriving, enter in; 

For what earthly is and mortal 

There a heavenly life shall win?” 

Morn and evening came—unbidden. 

Sweat and toil were still my lot; 

Still remained forever hidden 

That for which I worked and sought. 

In my path the mountains towered, 

Streams my onward course withstood, 

Over yawning chasms I lowered 
Bridges ’cross the raging flood. 

Till, at last, where, eastward flowing, 

A calm river bade to rest; 

I, its hidden shoals unknowing, 

Refuge took upon its breast. 

Onward to the mighty ocean 

Me its playful current bore; 

Still the goal of my devotion 
Was no nearer than before. 

Ah, no pathway thither leadeth; 

And the Heaven that seems so near, 

Ever from the earth recedeth, 

And the There is never Here. 


14 


A POET’S RECIPE 


To a stock that’s well flavored with fancy and fact 
And warmed with good humour and cheer, 

Add the cream of your wit and, with consummate tact, 
Timely epigrams, culled there and here. 

Forget not true sympathy’s magical touch, 

Making readers and poets all kin; 

Our poor human foibles don’t blame overmuch, 

Rather, draw out the beauty within. 

A fine vein of pathos may not be eschewed, 

Nor the most unimpeachable rhymes; 

Stir well, and, once it has settled, you’ve brewed 
A dish that is fit for the Times. 

But stay ere you serve it; your lines well rehearse, 

And pause with a prayer on your lip 
To the Muse that loves indigent writers of verse 
That the editor forget not his “tip.” 

CUBA LIBRE 

Long years did Tyranny with bloody hand 
Fill thy fair borders with his awful reign; 

Thrice-cruel seemed it, for ’twas sunny Spain, 

Thy mother country, near whose southern strand 
Rise still the piles thy fathers’ cunning planned; 

’Twas she that smote thee; and the mother tongue, 

In whose soft cadence many a bard has sung. 

Fell curses framed against thy suffering land. 

Now all is over; in thy tropic calm, 

Sleep on, fair isle, the century’s latest state. 

On thy sad wounds has Justice poured her balm, 

And Peace, white-winged, stands now at thy gate. 

For fame nor spoils was it we fought for thee: 

Our hearts said, ere our guns: “Thou shouldst be free.” 

15 


THE LAST OF THE MANISEES 


Storm-beat, sun-browned as the isle 
Thou and thine did hold erstwhile, 

Wanderer from that far-off shore 
Whence e’en yet, with muffled roar. 

Breakers boom along the vast. 

Echoing cavern of the past. 

Bearing o’er the misty sea 
Messages for us and thee— 

Exile of an exiled race, 

What after deeds can e’er efface 
A past ensanguined by the greed 
That broke the bounds of Christian creed 
And made the Puritans whose quest 
For peace and freedom God had blessed 
Usurpers of the Red Man’s right, 

Enforcers of unhallowed might. 

Ready to use, when guile was spent, 

The musket’s sterner argument: 

Heard’st thou not from thy fathers so, 

’Round wintry camp-fires, Indian Joe? 

Indian Joe, what furrows now 
Time has sunken on thy brow. 

Many a fleeting year has shed 
Flowers and hoar-frost on thy head, 

Many an Indian brave laid down 
Bow and quiver in his brown 
Burial-wigwam, ere the wave 
Thy first bark rough welcome gave. 

Fiercely, when o’er the foam returning, 

Author’s Note: Twenty-five years ago there was employed 
at one of the summer hotels of Block Island, R. I., an old Indian, 
who was reputed to be one of the few survivors of the Manisee 
tribe, once powerful on the Island. The poem attempts to por¬ 
tray something of his history and to describe certain aspects of 
his island home. 


16 



With dipping prow the mad waves spurning, 
Roared how many a “line-storm” gale 
’Round thy homeward-speeding sail; 

Lashed thy wigwam skins in vain 
Each autumnal hurricane. 

Vainly, in thy stronghold fast, 

Beat o’er thee December’s blast? 

What fear could e’er the storm’s decree 
Inspire in thee, bold Manisee; 

What mattered it how winds did blow, 

When life was gladness, Indian Joe? 

Long thy years and sad and long 
Reads the story of thy wrong, 

Since northward where, a broadening stream, 
The Narragansett’s waters gleam, 

Thy tribesmen bent the dripping oar 
Their island home to own no more; 

Thou only left to hold and claim 
The music of that Indian name; 

To pass thy days for clothes and food 
In dull and thankless servitude; 

Happy if some summer guest 
Take pity at thy oft request 
And, richer in money than in time. 

Draw from his purse the longed-for dime, 
Unknowing that the quenchless thirst, 

Set of old by that fire accursed, 

Rages and burns in thee yet, a slave 
To the “elixir of life” the white man gave. 
What matters it how the world may go, 

When “fire-water” gladdens thee, Indian Joe? 

Changes that to thee must seem 
The taunting visions of a dream, 

Time with as wondrous rites has wrought 
17 


As ever Indian wizard taught. 
Thick-clustered round the crescent bay 
Where then the skin-thatched wigwams lay. 
The conqueror’s village, white and clean, 
Crowns many a rolling hill of green; 

For belt of wampum now are told 
Trade’s costlier wares in beads of gold; 
Thy wigwam poles grand mansions rise, 
Where idling wealth with beauty vies, 

And Pleasure in her three-month sway, 

With Summer keeps glad holiday. 

Still, deep and solemn as of yore, 

The ocean thunders on the shore; 

And childish hands of fairer hue 
Search now the calm shoal waters through, 
Gathering from the sands the free, 
Wave-worn treasures of the sea, 

Where thou, perchance, long years ago 
Sought the blue star-fish, Indian Joe. 

Thrice-happy he to whom unfold 
From memory’s store youth’s days of gold, 
Sweeten the lingering draught of pain, 
Hold to the lips where sorrow is 
The wine from youth’s rich chalices, 

And make the old heart young again. 

And so to thee must come through all 
Thy present ills some madrigal 
Of summer joys whose echoes chime 
Full gladly o’er life’s winter clime. 

Still gleams, red-eyed, across the night 
The beacon of the great South Light; 

The fog-horn shrieks its notes of woe, 

The breakers on the rocks below 
Lead with deep-voiced minstrelsy 
The anthem of the wind and sea. 


18 


But thine no more the camp-fire’s blaze, 
No more, as in those olden days, 

Shall Indian braves in council plan 
Defense against the Mohegan; 

Nor ’round the hundred ponds that smile 
Throughout the Little God’s fair Isle. 
Shall thy light net of willow snare 
The marsh-hen from her reedy lair, 

Nor from his muddy depths draw out. 
With hook of bone, the horned pout. 

No—all thy tribal heritage, 

Speech, customs, gone; that simpler age, 

A link in Time’s enmeshing chain. 

Has passed, as ours shall pass amain, 
Recording on Fate’s conscious scroll 
Its part to make the perfect whole. 

Nature, in spite of bars and checks. 

The simple moulds to the complex; 

Thus, ordered in God’s ancient plan 
To mark the long ascent of man, 

Thou, too, and thine may rest content 
To be His needed instrument, 

Assured His love shall with thee go, 

Here and hereafter, Indian Joe. 



19 



ALUMNI AD SENIORES 


O reverend knights of cap and gown, 
Hard tried in high endeavor. 

Who soon must lay your armor down 
And college friendships sever; 

With you we’d share the lore with which 
Old tutor world did cram us, 

So now in this brief hemistitch, 

Vos nixi salutamus. 

But, “doff your armor” when so soon 
The conflict round you closes?— 
’Tis but to taste awhile of June, 

And rest beneath its roses. 

That armor which, in college days, 

Full many a foe hath vanquished, 
Must still protect you on your ways 
And never be relinquished. 

And, although parts are weak, be bold; 

Let each act new strength give it— 
Life’s duties done as they unfold 
Shall add both plate and rivet. 

And let the battle’s surge and din, 

Now those still cloisters nearing, 

Be as a trumpet call to win, 

Sans doubting and sans fearing. 

Both give and take: the shattered steel 
In life’s requiting warring, 

When faith and love are there to heal, 
Grows stronger from the scarring. 

20 


No furloughs and no crosses ask 

When life’s campaign pursuing; 

Your rest find in the daily task, 

Your badge in its well doing. 

To cant and wrong lay dauntless siege, 
Your mail make bright with Honor: 

’Neath that fair crest, noblesse oblige , 
No stain should come upon her; 

So that, when battling days are done. 
And Life’s awards allotted, 

What though the joust be lost or won, 
Your shield be still unspotted. 


ANNIVERSARY LINES 

Read at the People’s Academy Commencement, 
Morrisville, Vt., June, 1900 

Tonight the old school welcomes us, and through 
The well-known gates her annual tribute flows; 
Requiting Time the long-held debt bestows, 

And old-time voices mingle with the new. 

Older the years have made us, yet more true 
Methinks to Alma Mater and to those 
Resplendent visions of the good that rose 
’Neath her kind heed and with her nurture grew. 

And so tonight, whate’er our trophies be 
On life’s field won, to her who early taught 
The kindly deed, the truth-inspired thought, 

We bring them with the old-time loyalty, 

And, like iEneas at the hallowed gate, 

To her the sword and aegis dedicate. 

21 


To us who, through the mingled light and shade 
That flecked life’s pathway through the last decade. 

Look down the broadening vista, which still seems 
The haunt of fragrant memories, youthful dreams, 

How pleasantly returns that autumn day 
Whose stroke of nine first called, in glad array, 

Us upward to the goal of all our prayers— 

That sacred precinct, then known as “Up stairs”. 

Entering elate, as on enchanted ground, 

Not least among those budding joys we found 
That elementary woe, our ABC, 

By some kind magic changed to a Beebe,* 

A name whose twin imperatives impressed 
Ever the precepts, “Be earnest, be your best”; 

A man whom words of mine but ill can show 
How much we honor, and how much we owe. 

Our freshman year sped on; with haughty mien 
We passed our former schoolmates on the green, 

And, strange to say, as schooldays onward flew, 

Full many a thing we learned we never knew. 

Soon, too, we read, with unsuspecting zest, 

That Gaul in partes tres divisa est; 

Since then we’ve felt in journeying on life’s barge 
The part that falls to us is rather large. 

Not like spring tonics, now , but all the year 
The Fates decree it and, without a tear, 

Old Doctor Time, that stern allopathist, 

Forces it down with many a grievous twist. 

Later, ’mid blinding snows or drenching rains. 

We bore the brunt of Caesar’s rough campaigns, 

*W. A. Beebe, U. of Vt., 1889, for many years Principal of 
People’s Academy. 


22 



Raised Roman eagles o’er the forests where 
The Rhine’s first babblings woo the Alpine air, 

With Caesar crossed the British Channel o’er 
And fought the sturdy Briton like a Boer. 

(And, would to Heaven, in the present fray, 

The Boers had Caesar on their side today!) 

But harder tasks arose; no engineer 
Of Saint Gothard had greater cause for fear 
Than we when, with our lexicons in line, 

We ready made to span the swollen Rhine. 

Some I recall who had fine pluck displayed 
In all our broils, ere the first beam was laid, 

Betook themselves to some adjacent ridge 

And watched their former comrades build the bridge. 

From Caesar’s hobbies ’twas we suffered most— 
Those long forced marches, how much toil they cost! 
And how we dubbed his ablative absolute 
As absolutely stale, and hard, to boot. 

Yes, Caesar, stern thou wast, but not unkind: 

Thy deeper meaning has been ours to find; 

We’ve lived to learn in life’s grim war that he 
Who wins must go magno itinere. 

And he who worsts his foes, nor yet maintains 
Rule o’er himself, a doubtful victory gains. 

Ay, Learning’s taste was sweet and though forgot 
Are half her maxims and the storied thought 
Of Caesar, Homer, and the rhapsodies 
Of Mantua’s poet, dearer far than these, 

Rings out tonight from chords long struck the tune 
That filled with joy those other days of June. 

God grant, as then, our ideals still may be 
A richer service, faith and loyalty. 


23 


DOING THINGS WELL 


Get into the habit of doing things well; 

Its value is great if you’ve service to sell. 

You expect it from others; then do it yourself: 
(Consistency rusts when it’s kept on the shelf.) 

From the long list of deeds through which energy acts 
You’ll find standing out this most helpful of facts, 

That the doer whom history loves to recall 
Was he who did some thing the best of them all; 

And the boy whose success we can safely foretell 
Is the one who begins just by doing things well. 

You may know the old story, rehearsed oft before, 

Of the man—and the world making tracks to his door. 
Because, in plain truth, the mouse-traps he made 
By their merit put all other brands “in the shade,” 

So the maker’s best efforts were vain to supply 
His famous mouse-traps to all who would buy. 

Now, we can’t all make mouse-traps; if we did, ’twere a sin. 
For then where would all the poor “tabbies” come in? 
But, whatever your calling, the maxim applies, 

And you’ll heed it, my boy, if you wish to be wise: 

If you learn a hard lesson, or give the school yell, 

Get into the habit of doing it well. 

And do not, I beg you, belittle the sweat 

And labor of those whom the world may forget, 

But who in their corner, through rain and through shine, 
Have steadily followed this maxim of mine; 

Their reward is secure, for, though hidden from view, 
They did with their might what their hands found to do. 
Theirs the plaudit, “Well done,” which, the Good Book 
doth tell, 

Is promised to those who keep doing things well. 

24 


Do I hear you remark: “It’s a fine thing to teach, 
But better by far what you practice to preach.” 

You could write such a sermon much better than I; 
Here’s pencil and paper; you’re welcome to try; 

But till you attempt it, you never can tell 
How hard I have tried to write this sermon well. 


FORTUNE TELLING 

Laughing Bess and red-cheeked Hal 
Romping through the clover; 

Picking nodding buttercups, 

Glad that school is over; 

Letting down the pasture bars, 

Through the woodlands straying, 

Gray moss-cups and meadow-sweet 
Now their steps delaying. 

“Wait,” cries Bessie, bending down, 
Roguish little figure; 

“Let’s see what you’re going to be 
After you get bigger.” 

So picking then a long fern leaf, 

From the forest’s treasure, 

She gravely pulled the leaflets off, 
Repeating this quaint measure: 

“Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. 
Lawyer, doctor, merchant, chief .” 

Fast the fateful leaflets fall, 

Like birds of evil feather. 

Till finally the fern leaf and 
The couplet end together. 

“A chief—that’s what you’re going to be,” 
Said Bess, in laughter raising 
25 


Her eyes to Hal; “What fun ’twill be”— 
Still at her playmate gazing. 

***** 

Many a springtime flower has bloomed, 
Many a tempest driven. 

Since their childish oracle 
In the woodlands given. 

Sly Cupid has improved the years, 

That shrewd young mathematician, 

And their two hearts has joined in one, 
Most marvelous addition! 

But now, alas for prophecy! 

Sweet Bess, when last I saw her, 

Was in that home acknowledged chief, 
And Harold? He’s a lawyer. 


GOLDEN ROD 

September comes in robes than princes’ fairer, 
With blooms that wave and nod; 

And, clothed in royal garb, his color-bearer 
Thou comest, golden rod. 

What though an outcast, low in rank and station, 

A friend of all thou art— 

The woodland bee makes thee his destination, 

The butterfly, her mart. 

Blithe crickets, chirping in thy fragrant shadows. 
Thy chief musicians be; 

And bright-winged flies, gay rovers of the meadows, 
Thy happy tenantry. 


26 


More beautiful is life because thou dwellest 
’Mid humble haunts of men, 

And with thy wand of sunlight still foretellest 
The golden days again. 

The aster leans toward thee her swaying censer, 

A cousin’s right to claim, 

And incense-fire begs of thee, dispenser 
Of summer’s hoarded flame. 

Like him of old who to his suffering neighbor 
With help and comfort ran, 

Thou art to all who on lone highways labor 
A Good Samaritan. 

No ill bodes thee the day, or wind that shifteth, 
Staunch kinsman of the sun, 

That valiantly his flameless torch uplifteth, 

When he his course has run? 

No lovelier flower he finds in journeying over 
Our northern hemisphere; 

His own warm hue he gives thee, as a lover, 

To brighten and to cheer. 

And when at last cold winter’s icy fingers 
Do smite thee down, e’en then. 

Still o’er thy desert haunts fond memory lingers, 

And thou dost bloom again. 

O, teach us by the brightness of thy splendor 
How great ’tis, how divine, 

To keep our hearts through all e’er brave and tender, 
Our faces glad, like thine! 


27 


TO LUCIUS SEXTIUS 
Q. Horatii Flacci Carminum IV, Liber 1 

Spring’s glad return and the South wind loosen harsh 
Winter’s cold fingers; 

Pulleys now drag up dry keels on the beaches; 

Now no more herds in the stalls rejoice, nor plowman 
by firesides lingers. 

Nor the hoar frost whitens the far meadow reaches. 

Venus again ’neath the moon, she of Cytherea, leads her 
chorus, 

Nymphs paired with Graces, a fair troop that tires, 

Treading with this foot, now that, the fresh earth; while 
up o’er us, 

Sweaty Vulcan fans the fell Cyclopean fires. 

Now it is comely the green, leafy laurel to bind round sleek 
tresses, 

Or, the gay flowers that of young meadows savor; 

Now it is fitting to offer oblations to Pan in the lush wilder¬ 
nesses, 

Whether a lamb ’tis or a kid meets his favor. 

Treading with equal approach, pallid Death stalks through 
poverty’s gate and 

Kings’ proud abodes. For, O happy Sextius, 

Life, with brief span, doth forbid us long existence 
await, and 

Now, even now the night presses on thee; and next us 

Pluto’s dim home and the fabled manes are calling; 
hence when thou goest, 

Such wine as this shall ne’er be thy lot, now so warm¬ 
ing; 

Nor shalt thou then the fair Lycide behold, at whom, as 
thou knowest, 

Each youth enthuses, for there all maids lose their 
charming. 


28 


THE RING OF POLYCRATES 
From the German of Schiller 

On his palace summits stood he, 

And with proud contentment viewed he 
Far-lying Samos’ rich estate. 

To Egypt’s king he spake: “These regions 
To me alone owe firm allegiance; 

Admit that I am fortunate.” 

“The gods in truth do on thee shower 
Rare gifts, yet still thy scepter’s power 
Constrains them, who were as thy kin. 

But one lives still whose wrath may claim thee, 
Hence can my lips not happy name thee, 

While his dread eye keeps watch within.” 

And ere the king had done, appearing, 

See! a Milesian herald bearing 

This message from the Tyrant there: 

“Let sacrificial incense, sire, 

Now mingle with thy altar fire, 

And festive myrtle crown thy hair. 

“For now thy foe, by spear-thrust smitten, 

Lies low; behold the glad news written 
By thy true vassal, Polydore.” 

And from an urn’s dark depths, still bleeding, 
A well-known head he drew, receding 

The sovereigns’ frightened gaze before. 

The king, awe-struck, shrank back: “Believe me, 
Trust Fate no more, lest she deceive thee,” 

He cautioned with uneasy glance; 

“Reflect, how on some hidden shallow 
The treacherous sea thy fleet may swallow, 
Once fickle fortune yields to chance.” 

29 


But hardly yet the words were spoken 
When the tense pause again was broken 
By joyous trumpets’ martial din: 

With foreign treasure richly freighted 
To secret havens, long awaited, 

The many-masted fleet comes in. 

The royal guest looked on astonished: 

“Today thy fortune’s well admonished, 

But guard against a change of hand. 

The Cretans’ hostile forces arming, 

In threatening might to battle swarming, 
Already near thy peaceful strand.” 

Ere this was said, a glad commotion 
Rose from the ships that braved the ocean 
And thousand voices “Victory” cried: 

“From dreaded foes we’re saved—our allies. 

The storm and wave wrecked Crete’s proud galleys 
And war no more shall us betide.” 

This heard the royal guest with terror, 

“Forsooth, I must admit my error; 

Yet still I tremble for my host. 

The gods’ keen envy makes me fearful, 

For joy unchanging in this tearful 
Abode can yet no mortal boast.” 

“Me also Heaven’s kind grace attended, 

Through all my sovereign sway befriended, 
Assuring all a happy fate: 

And yet one precious son I treasured 
Did God take from me—thus I measured 
Full penance for my happy state.” 

30 


“So, wilt thou still from grief defend thee, 

Go pray the spirits they may lend thee 
Sorrow for joy and loss for gain. 

None saw I yet make happy ending 
On whom the gods, from full hands lending, 
Shower rich gifts that fall like rain/’ 

“And if the gods this boon refuse thee. 

Then take a friend’s advice and loose thee 
Thyself from such disaster free; 

And what from all thy well-loved treasures 
Thy heart’s most deep affection measures, 
Take thou and cast it in this sea.” 

The other spoke, by fear inspired: 

“Of all this isle holds most desired, 

This ring here is my chiefest good; 

With this the Fates then I’ll importune 
That they may pardon my good fortune 
And cast the jewel in the flood.” 

But scarce was day’s next sunrise gleaming, 
When proudly came, with glad face beaming, 

A fisher to the Samian king: 

“This fish—of last night’s toil the sequel— 

Of which net ne’er has caught the equal, 

To thee as rightful gift I bring.” 

And as the cook prepared for eating 
The wondrous catch, his heart stopped beating, 
And to the king in haste he ran: 

“The ring thou wor’st—I come to tell thee— 

I found it in the fish’s belly; 

O, thy good fortune has no span.” 

31 


Here cried the guest, his awe grown stronger, 
“With thee can I abide no longer, 

Nor friend of thine in future be; 

The gods are bent on thy perdition, 

And I go hence, lest me they wish on 
An equal fate”; and off sailed he. 


JUSTIN S. MORRILL 
(1810-1898) 

Rest, statesman, rest, the long-fought battle ended, 

Fame claims thee hers throughout the coming years 
On thy last sleep in silence has descended 
The benediction of a nation’s tears. 

Not thine a life of ease, or showy splendor; 

On thee Truth’s kindliest beam did never shine, 

Yet all that makes a people’s staunch defender, 
Protector, friend-all these were nobly thine. 

Ambition’s wiles nor Mammon’s greedy favors 
Ne’er moved thee; in its undisturbed repose 
That steadfast virtue of those patriots savors 

Who lived of old where Father Tiber flows. 

From where Pacific rolls his waves enchanted 
To the far reaches of the eastern pine. 

The lights of rural lore thy wisdom planted 
As fadeless beacons evermore shall shine. 

And still, whate’er befall us, thy loved nation. 

Writ clear on History’s immortal page, 

Thy deeds shall surer make our destination, 

Thy life shall be our cherished heritage. 

32 


A LOVE LETTER 


Oft do I picture thee when day is done, 

And, soft and deep, the twilight shadows fall. 
Ensconced before the hearth, where flash and run 
The glowing heralds of the flame, alone. 

With book in hand—a well-thumbed tome, withal— 
Of some old bard whose rhythmic measures beat 
In tune with thy fond dreams, my Marguerite. 

The weary lessons of the day are o’er; 

To thee ’tis naught how Jason held his prow 
From sunny Argos toward the golden shore; 

How sailed the young Crusaders eastward—more 
Than they thou voyagest, for on thee blow 
Kind memory’s magic winds, as gently greet 
The scenes of other day, thee, Marguerite. 

So, might I take thy hand in mine, my dear, 

And share with thee the treasures of the past— 
Those times so far away, and yet so near. 

When love was young, and new with every year 
Those youthful joys that shall all time outlast; 

For youth and hope and love, in union sweet, 

Are thine and mine for aye, my Marguerite. 

And dare I hope, as slowly o’er the walls 

Faint shadows creep, the bard’s last song is sung, 

The fire-light flickers, and, like music, falls 

The night-wind’s whisper through the vacant halls. 

That Sleep’s soft curtain, gently o’er thee flung. 

Shall, as in old days, the spell repeat 

That joins thy soul with mine, my Marguerite? 


33 


OUR ALLEN 
Founder’s Song 

When George the Third sat on his throne and wondered 
How best to crush rebellious Yankee Land; 

When through Vermont’s still vales his cannon thundered 
And dangers gathered fast on every hand, 

When patriots all to smite the kindred foemen 

Drew sword and won their freedom and their fame, 
’Twas then stood up the bravest of our yeomen 
And General Ira Allen was his name. 

REFRAIN 

O Allen, our Allen; and a rah! rah! Ira Allen! 

Your bones are dust, but your name we trust, 

For our praise shall never want; 

Nor a song’s refrain, while o’er Champlain 
Streams bright the western glory, 

And the splendor falls through her fair halls, 

Of your founding Old Vermont. 

Like Scipio, renowned in ancient story, 

A shrewd adviser you in Freedom’s cause, 

Your country helped to save by deeds of glory, 

Your State to safeguard by unselfish laws; 

And when the war was over, we know how well. 

With courage true no toil nor care could daunt, 

For Valor’s sword you took the humble trowel 
And laid the rugged walls of Old Vermont. 

Across the hundred years still shines resplendent 
The memory of your noble deeds and great, 

Fair Learning’s patron and the wise attendant 
Of the frail fortunes of the infant State. 


34 




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So long as winds shall ripple Champlain’s waters 
And Adirondack’s sunset banners flame, 

From college halls your loyal sons and daughters 
Glad song shall raise in honor of your name. 


THE SERENADE 

Adown his darkening reaches, kindling far 
On lone west windows coronals of flame. 

Bright Phoebus guides to rest his golden car 

And leaves the day a memory and a name. 

Toil’s jarring notes are hushed, and as the stars 

Announce the twilight near, from woodland ways, 
From roadsides sweet with bloom and pasture bars. 

Earth’s creatures swell the vesper hymn of praise. 

A wanderer lost amid this twilight world, 

To Care a captive and to Doubt a prey, 

I seek the peace of night, as, slow unfurled, 

Her sable mantle darkens o’er the day. 

A dusty roadway, glimmering through the gloom 
Of this calm evening, leads me, ere I know, 

Close by a pond, whose lilies’ faint perfume 
Blends with the music of its overflow. 

’Neath fringing alders whose lithe branches stir 
In dreamy nocturnes, o’er the watery place, 

The bull-frog old, a burdened chorister, 

Rasps out the long-drawn minor of his bass. 

A ’cellist of no mean pretensions, he 

With one deep note the varied strain begins, 

While grass-hid crickets swell the minstrelsy 
With the shrill octaves of their violins. 


35 


Unmindful of the leader’s cue, afar 

’Mid darkling thickets, shy erstwhile and mute, 
A lone wood-warbler ventures now a bar, 

Fugue-like, with the soft music of his flute. 

And through the lengthening distance, as the moon 
Slow sinks adown the west, from denser shade, 
The guardian night-owl sounds his weird bassoon, 
The last, low echo of the serenade. 


THE SUN DIAL 

“Horas non numero nisi serenas” 

By the fringing green of the garden close, 
Upraised to the dawn’s first coy embrace 
And the shafts of noon, till the sunset throws 
A softened light o’er the granite face; 

Through the summer heats, if the sky be bright, 
Alike when winter’s keen blasts draw nigh, 

While its shadow circles its course of light, 

It seems to say to each passerby: 

“Let others take note of the storms and showers, 

I count only the sunny hours.” 

Slowly, how slowly in youth’s glad prime, 

It marks the moments of task and play, 

When a crowded year of the after-time 
Seems gathered and lost in a summer’s day! 

Then the slow-winged hours bring naught but j oy, 
And the morrows like angels, beckoning stand, 
Waiting to usher the girl and boy 
Still farther into the Promised Land. 

Ah! when hope blooms, like the springtime flowers, 
How easy to count but the sunny hours! 

36 


But Age must garner where Youth has strown— 
How else is the spirit made strong to bear 
Old hopes deferred and old pleasures flown, 

The gloom of grief and the cark of care? 

For God in His mercy has willed, through all 
Earth’s loss and change, one thing stand sure: 
Though His sunshine gleam or His shadows fall, 
His care and love shall still endure; 

Alike when the tempest the rose deflowers 
Or peace and joy rule the sunny hours. 

Lives speak more clearly than voiceless stone, 

And a fragrant memory comes down the years 
Of one who made all bright days her own, 

In spite of the sorrow and hidden tears. 

God’s sunshine she gathered to scatter ’round, 
Through loss upborne, as by hands unseen, 

Till earth’s last ray on the dial found 
Her spirit calm and the sky serene. 

God send us grace, ’mid life’s storms and showers 
Like her, to count only the sunny hours! 


MAY 

Child of the autumn seed-time and soft April showers, 
With many a low-voiced tune, 

Thou down far paths, thronged with sun-opened flowers, 
Lead’st on to cloudless June. 

The sun, thine almoner and chief magician, 

Like Lydia’s king of old. 

Smites the bare sward and, changed to fields Elysian, 

It shines with hoarded gold 
37 


Of sunny dandelions, with violets azure, 

While from cool green looks up— 

Pale guardian of his fountain’s crimson treasure— 

The blood-root’s ivory cup. 

Thou comest, Princess May; thy court receive thee 
With praise and homage meet, 

With shout and psalm, and there is naught to grieve thee. 
No thorns to pierce thy feet. 

The amorous wind plays with thy shining tresses, 

And thy low laughter rings; 

The phcebe’s song makes glad lone wildernesses. 

The torrent swells and sings. 

And on his summer embassy, the swallow, 

Post-haste from southern lands, 

Speaks quarters for his feathered friends to follow. 

And his own dwelling plans. 

Yet, loving still, we know that we must lose thee, 

And long though we implore. 

The ardent summer, hastening northward, woos thee. 
And thou art ours no more. 

O, all hope fondly dreams, the heart aspires 
In life’s too fleeting May, 

Say not these fade in summer’s chastening fires 
And with it pass away— 

The good remains, ’tis outer semblance changes; 
Heaven-summoned from the sod 

Of earthly ill, though through strange forms it ranges, 
It shares the life of God. 


38 


VACATIONING AT HARVARD 


A master who, from cares of school 
Once solace sought—and models 

For drilling best, by rote or rule, 

French into youthful noddles. 

Athirst for Learning’s sacred stream 
(H 2 0 oft ’tis writ), he, 

With bulging purse and face abeam, 

Set out for Cambridge city. 

’Twas here an ancient pedagogue, 

More blessed with room than scholars, 

Who, having now no rogues to flog, 

Killed time with hard-earned dollars, 

Took in our traveler, worn and thin, 

To all his wants attended— 

And often was he “taken in”, 

Ere his vacation ended. 

“Fair Harvard” runs that famous air, 

Oft sung by students merry; 

He saw ’twas true, but quite unfair 
He found the Secretary. 

And loud and long, with reasons strong. 

He strove his will to sever, 

But to sound views of right and wrong, 

Found Love* as blind as ever. 

So to offset the extra fee, 

Twice paid, but not refunded, 

“I’ll study twice as hard,” quoth he, 

“Or go—the way my mon’ did.” 

♦Prof. James L. Love, formerly director of the Harvard 
Summer School. 


39 



But who, however strong of will, 

To Harvard shades kept ever 
Unbroken troth, when Beacon Hill 

Keeps beckoning ’cross the river ? 

And so our friend full soon eschewed 
Fair Cambridge as too rural, 

And thrice a week a course pursued 
Unfeignedly extra-mural. 

He shopped at Raymond’s, lunched at Joe’s, 
Hobnobbed with every faker 
That dealt in text-books or old clothes, 
From Cornhill to Jamaica. 

He went canoeing on the Charles, 

“In the swim,” with two rich women, 
But, getting worsted in some snarls, 

Found water best to swim in. 

A bathing suit he bought at last, 

And on the beach while sunning, 

He found, as claimed, the colors “fast”, 

For they were all a-running. 

Thus sped the summer days along. 

Now work, now pastime filling 
The fleeting hours; at eve a song, 

Day’s cares to peace distilling; 

Till to Love’s realm, with honeyed speech, 
His bargain-hunt he carried. 

And, finding one within his reach, 

He seized it—and got married. 


40 


TO THE SOLDIER STUDENTS 

(Spanish-American War) 

Staunch, young crusaders of our later day, 

Like those rapt hearts of old, whose sacred sail 
Was set to catch the eastward-blowing gale, 

For far-off Tyre bound, though o’er their way 
The storm’s winds raged; as brave, as true as they, 
You went at duty’s call the Holy Grail 
Of human justice from th’ unhallowed pale 
Of Spanish wrong to snatch. Let sages say 
That through your valorous deeds shall not abound, 
In God’s good time, through all that southern isle 
The feet of busy traffic and the sound 
Of joyous life, where death did reign erstwhile, 
Till Hope’s fair seed, long crushed, shall germinate 
And bear the future age a sovereign State. 


THE “SHUT INS” 

It is not always they who toil for pay 

In life’s broad field, or fame’s prized meed to gain, 

Who labor with the sweat of hand or brain. 

That bear at last the brightest sheaves away— 

But they ofttimes to whom each passing day 
Brings but again the burden of dull pain; 

Who gladly suffer, if so not in vain 

Some loved one’s breast they armor for the fray. 

To anxious watchers by the summer seas 
The waves bring hope; the lilies fair of face, 

That neither toil nor spin, the embassies 
And envoys are of His abounding grace, 

Whom they best serve who burn through darkest ways 
The incense of unselfish love and praise. 

41 


SEHNSUCHT 


Today I wandered to the trysting-place 

The pines’ aroma filled the woodland way, 

And memory shed o’er it a sweet grace— 

But she I met there once was far away. 

The autumn splendor lay o’er all the land, 

A beauty than the summer’s wealth more fair; 

The evening breeze my burning temples fanned, 

That waved of yore the tresses of her hair. 

Once more I sat beneath the oak tree’s shade, 

Our resting-place when daily toil was o’er; 

A squirrel at its base still chirped and played, 

But her sweet voice, alas, I heard no more. 

And from a neighboring pine the hurrying years 
Her loved initials, carved with heart aflame, 

Had long erased, and all that love endears 

Seemed but the echo of that vanished name. 

Content she is; so should I be content, 

Though in my heart the old love lingers yet, 

Like violets’ breath in winter’s swift descent, 

And, though remembrance pains, would not forget. 


NACHGEFUHL 
From the German of Goethe 

When the vine once more is growing, 
When from vats the wine is taken 
And the rose again is blowing, 

I know not what troubles me— 

Tears adown my cheeks are thronging 
42 


If aught done is, or forsaken, 

And a vague, unwliispered longing 
Thrills with its intensity. 

Then at length I needs must reason. 
When from day-dreams I awaken, 
’Twas in such a beauteous season 
Doris once did blush for me. 


OCTOBER IN NEW ENGLAND 

No more the woods resound with cuckoo cries, 

The sun peers slantwise from the hazy sky, 

With crimsoned brush the aerial artist plies 
His silent magicry. 

The wind, the unseen harper, stirs the sward’s 

Brown waste to song, and yellowing orchard rows 
Bend to the music of his elfin chords 
And faint arpeggios. 

Down bosky slopes, where Summer pomp and state, 

Like some fair princess kept, the dozing stream, 
Her minstrel old, shrunk and disconsolate, 

His lay crones all adream. 

And deep within the wood’s dim confines where 
The flaming maple, autumn’s prodigal, 

Lights up the gloom, faint leaf sounds on the air, 

Like fairy voices fall. 

Thus, like the visit of some well-loved guest, 

Too short to satisfy, too sweet to stay, 

A slave, alas! at Winter’s grim behest, 

The Autumn glides away. 

43 


AUTUMN PASTELS 


i 

’Neath forest spire and minaret, 

Where summer’s green has changed to gold, 
The pensive phoebe lingers yet, 

Telling her name, as then she told; 

While snugly in his coat of fur, 

Gathering his store from shell and burr, 
The squirrel sits, philosopher 
Of winter’s coming cold. 

ii 

Below, the shifting tapestries 
Of sun and shadow interlace, 

New patterned by each vagrant breeze, 
Which, with its softened harmonies, 

Lulls like a fond embrace. 

Low murmuring, creeps the brook along 
Its reedy way, where once a throng 
Of painted courtiers, fair and strong, 

Jostled to find a place. 

hi 

Softly through the hazy distance 
Drowsy autumn yields, 

Bleat the sheep with mild insistence 
O’er the serried fields; 

Bursts of sunshine, chased by shadow, 

Light the afternoon; 

Lightly blown o’er vale and meadow, 
Breathes the air of June. 


44 


Envoi 


Why regret that summer’s sweetness, 

Dear, should you and I, 

With the autumn’s rich completeness 
Buried soon shall lie! 

Joys there are than summer’s nearer. 

Promises than autumn’s dearer. 

When through all life’s light shines clearer— 
Love shall never die! 


THE GREEN AND THE GOLD 

They were climbing the “Hill” from the ball game one 
day. 

When the sun was aglow in the west, 

And the clouds gathered ’round it in dazzling array, 
As slowly it sank to its rest. 

He carried a banner of golden and green, 

Proud victor in many a fight; 

While she, as he gaily waved it between. 

Exclaimed, as it first caught her sight: 

“Our fair college banner; what forms, tell me, pray, 
Of its colors are dearest to you? 

I love them the best in the green of the May, 

And the gold of that far sunset view.” 

“You’ll pardon my prosaic tastes,” he returned, 

As his wallet he ruefully fingered, 

And saw, looking back, that the crowd at their side 
For ice cream and sodas had lingered; 

“The sunset and springtime are lovely, I know, 

But our colors are dearest to me. 

When they shine in a ten-dollar eagle, or so. 

Or the bewitching green of a V.” 

45 


THE SKATE HOMEWARD 


Ho! to the ice. Far the winter lake glistens 

In its armor, frost-forged, where the westering sun 
Low slants its mild radiance and tenderly christens 
With baptismal flame what the ice-god has done. 
Hark! Borne on the breeze from those far-shining levels, 
Now full-toned, now dying, in joyous appeal. 

Crisp and clear ’mid the din of the skaters’ glad revels, 
Comes the echoing chime of the scintillant steel. 

Let Care do her worst; in his cell old and musty, 

Let Learning still pore o’er the worm-eaten tome— 
A truce now to both, as on wings fleet and trusty, 

A steel-shodden Hermes, I fly away home. 

For milestones rise round me the rock-towered highlands, 
Whose feet the waves kissed the long summer days 
through; 

Ahead, cold and still, lie the winter-bound islands, 

Summer’s green changed to whiteness, to hoar-frost 
its dew. 

Behind me, the city, its roof and its towers, 

Like a white-tented army, asleep in the sun, 
Enamored of toil through the care-laden hours, 

With never a thought of the peace I have won. 

To the west, as I glide, a far, broken horizon, 

Th’ Adirondacks repose in their long winter sleep. 
The green of their pines white with snow, that now lies on 
Vale, forest and tillage-land, silent and deep. 

Fast pulses the blood at the sting of the north wind; 

In sonorous cadence the steel answers back 
To the far-echoing peals from the ice-anvil forth dinned, 
That clamorously follow my glimmering track. 

46 



“The green of their pines white with snow, that now lies on 
Vale, forest and tillage-land, silent and deep” 
















































On, on, never staying; the sun’s parting glances 

Fall slant o’er the ice-floor in cascades of light. 

In crimson-hued glory the cloud host advances, 

The evening star shines, the far outpost of night. 

The long night draws on, and as day’s dying splendor 
Slow fades on the mountains, its voices of calm 
The evening wind wafts, and in tones low and tender, 
Breathes o’er weary nature its healing and balm. 
O’er my head gleam the stars, and the lake’s quiet mirror, 
Palely bright, tells them back to the o’erspreading 
dome, 

While, like stars in the distance, each stroke brings me 
nearer 

The welcoming lights of the haven—and home. 


AUTUMN WOODS 

Blithe October, rich and brown. 

Cast his spell upon the woods, 

And the trees put on red hoods 
And the nuts came rattling down. 

Chirped the chipmunk to its fellow, 
Hummed late-faring bees, 

As the autumn, rich and mellow, 

Clothed in crimson, bronze and yellow, 
Filled with restful ease, 

Sent its long, enraptured straining 
Down its aisles among, 

WTiile my heart, in glad refraining, 
Echoed to the song it sung. 

“Why are we unhappy, mortals, 

On this earth below, 

47 


When the wood swings wide its portals 
And we all may go; 

For the rich content it brings 
Is beyond the reach of kings.” 


A SONG OF HOME 

A tale of the Orient you ask, but in vain— 

Memory, pointing her finger 

Back to one loved spot as the theme of the strain, 

Bids me be the singer. 

’Tis a tree-shaded grange on a southerly hill 
In the midst of fair acres. 

Where the warm airs of noontide with drowsy notes thrill 
And the zoned bees, like Quakers 

Drab-vestured and dusty, in many a bloom, 

Fair as love’s own fulfillment, 

Find the fragrance of morn and the evening’s perfume 
In their richest distillment. 

How wondrously over those mountains afar. 

Green with Nature’s adorning. 

The glad sun arose as the last paling star 
Melted into the morning! 

How gladly the robin with jubilant tune 
Spring’s overture voicing, 

We heard, and the bobolink welcoming June 
With his lyric rejoicing! 

How sweet ’twas to watch the cool evening invade 
Day’s hot realm, with its shadows, 

And to list to the night-songsters’ far serenade 
Float across the dim meadows! 


48 


Though Nature these joys with each summer shall share, 
What can still the heart’s yearning 
For the fond love that hallowed youth’s happy days there, 
Long since gone, past returning? 

O home, dearer yet, as now, severed and lone, 

I bow at strange altars, 

I think of thy homage that once was my own, 

And the saddened voice falters. 

Thus, still, though I sail many a billowy main, 

Memory, pointing her finger 
Back to one loved spot as the theme of the strain, 

Bids me be the singer! 


TO AN OLD VOLUME OF “THE KNICKER¬ 
BOCKER” 

Quaint heirloom from a grandsire’s store, 

Well-stocked with early prose and rhyme, 
How charmingly thy tales restore 
The manners of old time, 

When proudly ’mong its sisterhood 

The young State set its infant seal, 

Ere swaddling-clothes of tow and wood 
Were changed to coat of steel; 

When Independence, peace-crowned, reared 
The starry guerdon of her strife. 

And Freedom’s spirit, crushed and seared, 
Throbbed with a nation’s life; 

’Twas then from rural Tarrytown, 

From Sunnyside’s tree-shaded pile 
The first beams of thy muse shone down 
To cheer Manhattan’s isle. 


49 


His genius still, whose pen did trace 
Granada’s many-chambered stone 
And chronicle with deathless grace 
The life of Washington. 


Lights up thy pages, worn and thin, 

With many a curious legend writ, 

Like precious stones preserved within 
The amber of his wit. 

And fragrantly, as wind that teems 
With far-blown scents of pine and fir; 

Still breathe across thy page the dreams 
Of Edgewood’s “Bachelor.” 

Thy modern kinsmen well may boast 

Their wealth of science more than thine: 

With gems of lore from many a coast 
Their pictured pages shine. 

But yet to us, whose varying ways 

A common birthright closer blends, 

Echo thy long-forgotten lays 
Like voices of old friends. 

That old-time music steals across 

Our hurrying age of greed and gain, 

And cleanses from its moldering dross 
The gold of youth again. 

And, though to unpretentious themes 
Thy lyre was strung, its echo still 

Rebukes our empire-haunted dreams. 

Our hostages to ill. 

50 


God uses all; the breeze that thrills 

Toil’s heated brow with coolness sweet, 
No less He sends than wind that fills 
The sails of Traffic’s fleet. 

And so may we, in humble guise 

Of earth’s wayfarers, be content. 

If to some good our life supplies 
The needed instrument. 


TO MERCURY 

Q. Horatii Flacci Carminum, Liber 1, Ode X 

O Mercury, Atlas’ shrewd grandson, thou 
Who didst the minds of early men endow 
With speech, their muscles nicely trained to grow 
By arts athletic; 

Of thee I sing, who runst at Jove’s desire. 

The gods’ swift herald, parent of the lyre. 

Alert to hide whate’er thou dost admire 
In sportive thieving. 

Thus, when one day Apollo frightened thee 
With threatening voice his herds to pay in fee, 
By thee purloined, still did he laugh to see 
His quiver missing. 

And how fled Priam by thy guiding hand, 
Compelled, though rich, to leave the Ilian land, 
Th’ Atridae proud, Greek fires and hostile band, 
Troy’s foes, eluding. 

Thou, too, on pious souls dost rest bestow, 

In blissful seats, and driv’st the shadowy row 
With golden wand—to gods above, below. 

Alike well pleasing. 

51 


TO GRENVILLE DEAN WILSON 
(On standing by his grave at Nyack-on-the-Hudson, N. Y.) 

The instrument lies here; by what far springs 

The player tarries at whose touch of old 

The haunted muse of Nyack’s wood and wold 

Woke to new beauty from the dreaming strings 

We know not; yet, loved master, he who brings 

To common lives, as thou, the joy untold 

That sings at Nature’s heart, needs naught of gold 

To pave his pathway to diviner things. 

Now o’er thy grave the browning grasses sway. 

And, as the frolic breeze sweeps o’er the sward, 

Hark! Soft and sweet, a dreamy note of j oy— 

Now shrill, and clear, now faint and far away. 

As Pan had touched some old, well-loved chord— 

The limpid trebles of the “Shepherd Boy.” 


TO THE DISTANT LOVED ONE 
From the German of Goethe 

Then is it true that I have lost thee? 

Dearest, hast thou from me flown? 
Still echoes in his ear that crossed thee 
Thine every word, thine every tone. 

E’en as the wanderer’s gaze at dawning 
In vain to the far ether clings, 
Where, hidden in the blue of morning; 
The sky-lark high above him sings; 

So, vainly roves, now lifting, falling, 

My anxious gaze o’er grove and lea. 
’Tis thou my heart’s fond voice is calling— 
O, come, beloved, back to 
52 


me. 


TWO SWEETHEARTS 


My friend has a sweetheart, patrician, 

Rich, talented, gay, debonair; 

Her gowns are the latest Parisian, 

And diamonds blaze in her hair. 

Her accomplishments reach to the thirties, 

Her beauty is well-nigh divine, 

Yet his sweetheart withal a sad flirt is: 

I’m glad I can’t say that of mine! 

And oft from such visions of splendor 
My thoughts wander off to the hills 
Where she dwells whose love, true and tender, 

My heart with mad ecstasy fills; 

No diamonds deck her fair tresses— 

(One has gleamed on her finger since May) 
She wears but the plainest of dresses, 

And works for a dollar a day! 

THE SWIM HOMEWARD 

See the foam argosies, gracefully gliding, 

Sail the blue ocean exultant and free; 

Hark to the roar of the far breakers riding 
The measureless might of the surge of the sea. 

Old Neptune is calling, “Come hither, come hither”; 

The sea, the gay siren, has sung to me long, 

The wave sparkles bright and I long to be with her. 
And lose all my care in the spell of her song. 

A leap and a plunge and her cooling caresses 
Enfold me and hold me in buoyant embrace, 

And I catch the bright gleam of her sibilant tresses, 
Emerald-white as they curl in the swift shoreward race. 
Now rising, now falling, the pipes of the ocean, 
Wind-blown, in my ear peal their endless refrain, 

53 


As, buffeted, tossed by the waves’ wild commotion, 

My pathway I thread through the far-heaving main. 

How the waves rise and fall again, hill chasing hollow, 
How their crests toss and gleam as they turn to the sun. 
While o’er the blue floor of the ocean they follow 
Their mates in their courses, unendingly run. 

Now I breast the strong tide, now I float as I tarry 
While huge water-mountains rush o’er me amain; 

I dive and I thrust and I feint and I parry, 

Am worsted, revive and my vantage regain. 

But sweeter the goal when the way is the hardest. 

Tides change, and soon favoring breezes must blow, 

And, sea that my course through thy realm now retardest. 
Ere long shalt a kindlier indulgence bestow. 

The strait narrows down and soon, fitfully dreaming, 
Calmer waters appear, while ahead o’er the foam 
Of the far shoreward breakers lie, peacefully gleaming. 

The silvery beaches that welcome me home. 

SONNET 

E’en as the waves that on yon river’s breast 
Now gleam, now darkle ’neath the twilight sky, 

With musical, soft voices gliding by 
To the unfathomed ocean’s dreamless rest, 

Wist not that, prompt, as at a god’s behest, 

Leagues eastward, coursing irresistibly, 

The tide wave gathers, rushing full and free 
To meet them, ere as the tired guest 
Of Ocean they find haven; we who fare 
Uncertain ripples down Time’s sunflecked stream, 

No more may know what currents from the vast, 
Unmeasured future other lives shall bear 
To blend with ours, nor to our fondest dream 
What flood-tide shall fulfillment bring at last. 

54 





“An’ every blessed man of them, as they come up behind 
Pounced down upon that football chap, an’ in a very kind 
An’ lovin' way they held him hugged up tight against the groun’. 
Till in a muffled kind o' voice they heard him holler ‘Down!’” 








UNCLE HIRAM ATTENDS A FOOTBALL GAME 


“Ye say ye’d like to hear about my trip to Burlington: 
Wall, neighbor, it’ll interest ye, as well as any one 
Who’s never had the chance to travel as I have lately had 
An’ see the sights o’ city life, the good ’long with the bad. 
So jes’ draw up that chair o’ yourn, this way—a little 
nigher, 

The wind’s a-howlin’ so tonight it’s pleasanter near the 
fire:— 

Ye see my boy, Josiah, as likely a lad I’ll say, 

As ever follered furrer or pitched a load o’ hay, 

Last summer took a notion he’d kind o’ like to know 
More ’bout feedin’ pigs an’ calves an’ how to make stuff 
grow; 

Sez he, ‘These Beanville farmers don’t know how to farm 
it much, 

’Bout all they raise is cobble-stones an’ polypods an’ such; 
I believe,’ sez he, ‘this Beanville soil with proper cultiva¬ 
tion, 

Could grow buckwheat an’ corn enough to feed most half 
the nation; 

They say them ’Speriment Station chaps have now invented 
means 

To figger out the proper soil for’t all, from squash to beans, 
An’ when the thing starts up next fall I’m going up to see 
If, with all their skill an’ lamin’, they can drill some into 
me.’ 

“Wall, ye know that when Si’s mind’s made up, there’s 
nothin’ hardly known 

Whereby to make him change his views from what he’s 
set upon, 

So one September mornin’ when the frost had turned the 
trees, 


55 


An’ the corn leaves rustled mournful-like in the coolish 
autumn breeze, 

I harnessed up ole Fan, the mare, and started off with Si, 
While mother stood there with her mouth all puckered up 
to cry; 

’Twas the first time Si had left us to be gone a single night. 
An’ Hannah she’s soft-hearted and dotes on him a sight. 
We arrived at Beanville station without any accident. 

An’ had to wait an hour ’fore the plaguey mail-train went; 
But as fer me, I had to wait to get a harness fixed, 

50 I dropped into Simpson’s store an’ argered politics. 
’Twant long before the train pulled in an’ Si he got aboard, 
I shook his hand an’ looked at him, but couldn’t say a word; 
He took his white silk handkerchief and waved with all 

his might 

Till the engine struck the river bend an’ whistled out o’ 
sight. 

“Wall, the farm seemed kind o’ lonesome-like when I 
drove back that day. 

The colts they neighed an’ whinnered ’stho their best 
friend’d gone away. 

An’ ’bout cow-time, I’d hear the cows a-lowin’ ez tho’ in 
pain 

To hear no more Si’s merry voice a-soundin’ down the 
lane. 

An’ Hannah, too, was sober-like, but when the Tuesdays 
come 

She’d brighten up surprisingly an’ didn’t look so glum; 
For every Tuesday I’d hitch up an’ drive out for the mail. 
An’ every Tuesday there would be a letter, without fail. 

51 wrote about his college chums and what great sport 

they had 

A-rollin’ the Sacred Boulder off an’ cuttin’ up like mad; 
He ’lowed their sports was harmless, an’ full as much a 
part 


56 


Of a college eddication as is learnin’ books by heart; 

‘Of course,’ sez he, ‘we do indulge in such things now an’ 
then. 

As cuttin’ the professors some, like other college men. 

An’ if, as often happens, we don’t get a chance to look. 
Owin’ to outside engagements, in the inside of a book. 

An’ exam-time we get worried, why, all we have to do 
Is to pull the professors’ legs real hard, an’ we generally 
get through.’ 

“ ‘Wall, wall,’ sez I to Hannah, ‘if them things don’t beat 
all— 

Them fellers, a-hackin’ professors, like heathen cannibal. 
An’ a-yankin’ of their legs,’ sez I, ‘it’s ruther hard to see 
Just why they let such things go on at a University. 

I’m afraid Josiah’s gettin’ wild if he’s in with them rings. 
I’ll set right down an’ tell him what I think about such 
things’; 

So I took my good old goose-quill pen and in an angry 
strain 

I wrote at length jes’ how I felt, an’ wrote it pretty plain; 
I took an extra trip that night to take that letter out. 

An’ all the nex’ day an’ the nex’ ’twas all I thought about. 

“Wall, days turned into weeks an’ still we heard no word 
from Si, 

Till it must have been at least two good months had gone 
by, 

When one day Neighbor Whitcomb’s man drove up into 
our yard 

An’ handed out, with other mail, a single postal card. 
‘The writin’s Si’s,’ said Hannah quick, ‘what can the matter 
be? 

Why he should write a card to us, so short, too, I don’t see.’ 
‘That’s what we’ll soon find out,’ sez I, an’ we began to 
read: 


57 


‘Dear Parents: I received your note an’ have been givin’ 
heed 

To what you said, an’ will explain just what my letter 
meant 

When I come home, but until then you’ll have to be content. 

Say, dad, come down next Saturday, and jes’ as like as not 

You’ll see us chase a pig-skin ’round a half an acre lot.’ 

‘A pig-skin! wall, I swann!’ sez I, ‘but let me think a 
minute; 

I see, I see, it’s jes’ his way, of course, the pig’11 be in it. 

It’s some new-fangled college game them fellers have in¬ 
vented, 

It’s strange with all their studies they can’t never be con¬ 
tented. 

Nex’ Saturday is it?’ thought I, ‘I’d kind o’ like to go. 

It’s years now since I’ve been away, ’cept to a one-hoss 
show; 

For jes’ this once it won’t be wrong to humor my desire, 

I’ll be at that pig-chasin’ game an’ visit my Josiah.’ 

“Wall, Hannah thought ’tw’ant hardly safe, when I told 
my plan to her, 

Sez she, ‘Them fellers ’ll use ye up so ye can’t hardly stir; 

A man hard on to seventy, with rheumatics, can’t hold out 

A great while in such doin’s as Josiah wrote about.’ 

‘Wall, Si’ll look out fer that,’ sez I, ‘an’ we’ll kind o’ let 
’em see 

What Beanville pluck an’ muscle is, if they try them shines 
on me.’ 

So I got up nex’ Saturday an’ dressed up good, but plain, 

To drive out to the station to take the airly train. 

“It beats Ole Nick how pesky fast them railroad trains do 
run, 

’Twas uphill, too, quite steep sometimes, but it rattled on 
like fun, 


58 


It’ queerer, too, what contrairy views some people do pos¬ 
sess; 

I heard one say, ‘To think, sez he, ‘this Cannon-Ball Ex¬ 
press 

Has now begun to carry mail, an’ at such a snail-pace rate 

That if it ever does arrive, the news’ll be out of date.’ 

But the engine snorted right ahead, an’ long ’bout noon, 
I guess, 

A man came in, all fixed up fine in an army soldier’s dress; 

He was a puny-lookin’ chap, round-shouldered, lank and 
lean, 

As poor a stick o’ mortal man, I vum, ’s I’d even seen. 

‘There’s consumption in his family,’ sez I, ‘it’s jes’ as plain 
as day,’ 

An’ no sooner had I spoke when, in a very healthy way, 

I heard that feller holler, ‘Essex Junction, all change cars,’ 

In a voice that must have echoed way up among the stars. 

“ ‘Wall,’ sez I, ‘things are onsartin, an’ I seized my old 
gripsack 

An’ umbrell an’ started to get out before the pack; 

But, Lord! that pesky railroad train kept switchin’ out an’ 
in, 

Till I clean lost all my bearin’s an’ felt home-sick as sin; 

Every railroad in our good old State was present, I should 
say, 

An’ they run across each other in a mos’ perplexin’ way. 

But finally the engine, after spendin’ steam enough 

To take us back to Beanville, with a satisfied sort o’ puff, 

Pulled into a tall building, bigger’n any barn in town, 

An’ I tell ye it seemed good once more to step on solid 
groun’. 

Wall, I asked the new conductor ’bout the train fer Bur¬ 
lington, 

An’ in a grouty sort o’ way he pinted out the one. 

I took my traps an’ got aboard, when all at once, I vum, 

59 


That plaguey engine started out the same way we had come. 
‘Hold on/ sez I, a-gettin’ up, as the conductor come along— 
I was growin’ ruther wrathy, for I thought he’d told me 
wrong— 

‘This ain’t the train I want/ sez I, ‘it’s goin’ right straight 
back; 

Why didn’t you kindly tell me this wasn’t the right track? 
I’ll teach you/ sez I, a-grabbin’ my umbrell, ‘a different 
tune,’ 

An’ I prodded that conductor till he hollered like a loon. 
But some fellers dressed in soldiers’ clothes come up jes’ 
then behind, 

An’ in no gentle manner they made me change my mind. 
They talked the matter pretty plain an’ hinted some to boot 
That ’less I quit I’d prob’ly have a chance to go afoot. 

I humbly begged their pardon, when I realized what I’d 
done 

An’ see the train was runnin’ straight an’ swift fer Bur¬ 
lington ; 

They excepted my apology, an’ in a friendly way 

Said lots of folks got puzzled up like that mos’ every day. 

Wall, finally after passin’ through a tunnel dark as night, 
The engine whistled loud and long an’ the big lake was in 
sight. 

Si, he met me at the depot, but to my great surprise, 

He looked so changed an’ different I could hardly believe 
my eyes; 

His hair was long’s an Injun’s an’, besides, he wore instead 
Of the all-wool suit I bought him, a light one, stained with 
red, 

An’ he had a big green sweater tucked up close around his 
head. 

He was mighty glad to see me an’ in his hearty way 
He shook my hand and told me, ‘We’ll have some fun today 
That’s better’n diggin’ taters, an’ I’m awful glad you came 

60 


To see us lick the Sophs an’ win the annual football game. 
I’ll leave you at the Hash House to get a bite to eat 
An’ as I’m in a hurry, havin’ shortly got to meet 
The team out on the campus to try a play or two, 

I won’t stop now, but come right out as soon as ye get 
through.’ 

Wall, there wan’t much time fer talkin’, an’ Si led me to 
a car 

A-standin’ near the depot—the queerest thing by far 
I’d ever seen. In mos’ respects ’twas like a common one, 
Except the thing to draw it with, an’ how in time it run 
Clear up the hill, I couldn’t see—all loaded to the brim. 
(But I didn’t say a word to Si—I wouldn’t seem green to 
him.) 

Wall, we got aboard an’ as the thing went bobbin’ up the 
hill 

It sounded like the planer down in Peleg Jackson’s mill; 
An’ all that done the business, as a feller near me said. 
Was that sort o’ fishpole dingus I could see up overhead. 

After dinner at the Hash House—an’ a square one was 
the same— 

I started out across the field to that pig-chasin’ game. 

I found the crowd had got there, an’ they kept a-comin’, 
too. 

Till I had to use my umbrell good to work my passage 
through; 

’Twas some as ’tis on circus day, an’ some as on the Fourth, 
’Cept that a bitin’ wintry wind was blowin’ from the north; 
But the fellers laughed an’ hollered and seemed to think 
’twas fun 

To walk aroun’ an’ talk an’ yell afore the game begun. 
Bimeby I heard a mighty shout and I looked up to see, 
An’ saw two heavy wagons full of femininity, 

An’ all eight wheels a-decked so fine ye couldn’t see the 
spokes. 


61 


An’ up above, a-yellin’ too, was a lot o’ women folks; 
’Twas the co-eds, so a feller said, a-standin’ next to me, 
An’ when I went to axe him jest what that might be, 

He grinned an’ said they was the girls that lived down 
to Hay Hill, 

But why they go by such a name, I’m jest as ignorant still. 

Wall, ’long ’bout two it must have been, I heard another 
noise. 

An’ lookin’ toward the big brick house, I see a crowd o’ 
boys. 

Dressed up in jest such sort o’ clothes as Si had on that 
noon, 

A-runnin’ down an yellin’ like all possessed, an’ soon 
Another lot dressed jest the same, a-hollerin’ good an’ loud. 
Come dashin’ down, an’ soon I see that Si was in that 
crowd. 

A mighty queerish-lookin’ ball he carried by his side, 

An’ I asked a feller what it was: ‘The pigskin,’ he replied. 
I’d like to own a hog, sez I, that grew a hide like that; 
He’d be a fortune to a man when he got big an’ fat. 

But while my mind was runnin’ on to money-makin’ 
schemes, 

To growin’ footballs fer the trade an’ such-like idle dreams, 
Them long-haired chaps had placed themselves like run¬ 
ners in a race 

An’ stood with hands upon their knees, a-lined up face to 
face; 

One lad laid on the ground an’ held the pigskin in his hand, 
Then Si got back a rod er two an’ then, without command, 
He give that football such a kick that, if the wind’d been 
right, 

It would have carried it, I know, well-nigh clean out o’ 
sight. 

What follered was astonishin’; them critters run like mad 

62 


An’ fell upon that ball as though ’twas the dearest friend 
they had; 

A bunch of arms an’ legs an’ feet was all that could be seen, 
With here an’ there a head er two a-stickin’ out between. 
The ball was found, all safe and sound, at the bottom of 
the pile. 

An’ how the crowd did laugh an* yell! ye could hear ’em 
half a mile; 

But some of ’em looked ruther sore an’ sober-like an’ glum, 
As though ’twas gettin’ kind o’ cold an’ they wished they 
hadn’t come. 

Wall, them football chaps lined up again an’, after goin’ 
through 

A sort o’ countin’ business there wasn’t much sense to, 
The ball went back to a burly lad with a rubber on his nose, 
That was to stop its strikin’ some other man’s, I spose. 
An’ stars an’ garters! Ye should have seen how that there 
chap did run. 

He lit out with the ball held tight, an’ if he didn’t hum; 
With every man on the other side a-speedin’ like the wind, 
A-tryin’ to catch up with him, but always jes’ behind. 

Till finally a feller who’d been waitin’ fer the chance, 

Run up beside the first one an’, as graceful as a dance, 
He grabbed that runner by the legs an’ threw him on his 
side, 

An’ then to keep him quiet, he set himself astride, 

An’ every blessed man of them, as they come up behind 
Pounced down upon that football chap, an’ in a very kind 
An’ lovin’ way they held him hugged up tight against the 
groun’, 

Till in a muffled kind o’ voice they heard him holler ‘Down!’ 

Seemed to me a risky business to have a gang o’ men 
Pile onto one poor feller, make him bear the weight of ten; 

63 


But the crowd, they didn’t think so, an’ the way they’d 
shout an’ yell 

Every single time it happened, I hain’t words enough to 
tell. 

Wall, before the game was finished one poor feller got 
his arm 

Snapped short off by bein’ piled on, but he took it master 
calm; 

They led him to a horspital not far off on a hill, 

Which, as a feller kindly told me, had been left them in 
a will, 

Purpose to take care o’ boys that got hurt in such scrapes, 

As well as all the Freshmen that fell down fire-escapes. 

Wall, there wasn’t so much shoutin’ when the game was 
fairly done— 

Each team with a score of twenty-four an’ neither side had 
won. 

Of course I ain’t no judge, but the boys said ’twas as fine 

A piece o’ football as was ever played inside the line; 

An’ Captain Josiah Wintergreen was as proud of that 
there game 

As a rooster with his maiden spurs—an’ his father some 
the same. 

Wall, neighbor, it’s gettin’ ruther late, an’ it’s snowin’ hard 
as well, 

An’ ye’ve got quite a walk ahead, so I won’t stop to tell 

About my trip to Converse Hall an’ all the things I see 

There, at the Station an’ the “Mill,” but some night when 
ye’re free 

To hear it, I’ll be glad to tell ’bout all the other fun 

An’ other scrapes I got into on my trip to Burlington. 


64 


TO THE BOERS AT WAR 


What foes are these that war’s grim vestment wear, 
These hostile ships that throng the distant bay, 

A land of homes to smite, where each glad day 
Sweet songs of labor filled the balmy air, 

And simple faith welled up in hymn and prayer— 

Like slaves from your loved birthplace scourged away, 
Sons of the Boers, once more ye fall a prey 
To British greed that knows not how to spare. 

O England, if from thy great past arise 
No vision of the Right to bar thy hate, 

Think thou a Higher Judge, with veiled eyes 
Away shall turn till His just wrath abate 
With chastisement; shall justice compromise 

With wrong, although it wear the robes of state? 


TO A SWEETHEART 
(On sending photograph) 

Take the picture, dear, I send; 

Would some fairy rite might lend 
A charm to it, a fitness meet 
For thine acceptance; might repeat 
Some spell my unvoiced words to bear 
And pierce the barrier of the air. 

Let Love’s wireless telegraphy 
Be messenger ’twixt thee and me, 

For scarce can lifeless characters 
Convey the thoughts thy memory stirs. 

Chill December with his drear, 
Wind-sung requiems of the year, 
Saying his mass with mournful chant, 

A gray and storm-tossed celebrant, 

65 


He haply deems who ne’er did prove 
The deeper mysteries of love, 

Strange month to set the heart in tune 
To music born ’neath skies of June. 

But we know, dear. Love’s arrow flies 
As straight and true ’neath wintry skies 
As when the summer’s sunbeams bright 
Tip his quivering shaft with light, 

And every crescent moon doth see 
New victims of his archery. 

So send I this, but not to lend 
An ill-turned shaft his bow to bend; 

Rather—full selfishly ’twas done— 

As hostage for a fairer one, 

Happy if the likeness be 
Bringer of some joy to thee; 

Happy if it shall but prove 
Slight memorial of my love. 

SONNET 

What clever schemes doth Nature oft devise 
To find a place for every child of hers; 

What wondrous shapes she gives her followers, 
Ingenious parent, kind and mother-wise? 

Thus mused I, strolling, when before my eyes, 
A burdock bush, unheeding my demurs, 
Bestowed on me its entire crop of burrs— 

A gift whose purpose I could scarce despise. 

And so with us, perchance, ’twas better far 
To count the thousand cares and ills that twine 
Round every life some fair and good design 
That aims to make us better than we are; 

For every flower that sorrow bids to bloom 
Shall fill our lives with sweetness and perfume. 
66 


CLASS POEM 


(Read at the Commencement Exercises, University of 
Vermont, June, 1899) 

In every soul, those quivering chords are stored 
That needs must find a keynote. Happy he 
Who strikes it right, since scarce eternity 
Can ever change it; for, as always toward 
Its keynote, when from organ-pipes is poured 
The many-voiced, swelling harmony, 

The music hastens, till, full, strong and free, 
Bursts the glad triumph of the tonic chord— 

So, though life’s music have a minor strain 
And cadences that sorrow sets in tune, 

We know that still its last, farewell refrain 
In bleak December, bears the touch of June; 

For from youth’s hope and ideals ever springs 
The magic note that tunes the conscious strings. 

Let us then pitch life’s keynote pure and high 
For Truth and for mankind’s impaired estate; 
About our feet the world’s thronged purlieus lie, 
Suffering and needy, and the hour is late. 

For other shrines hath Truth, and scattered far 
From these, her best-loved haunts, in common-place 
And humble walks her loyal vassals are, 

The poor and toil-worn court her kindly grace; 
The world is hers and ’mid its sorest need, 

He most shall serve his Maker and mankind 
Who from the moldering heaps of cant and creed 
And lifeless dogma living truth shall find, 

And make, where thick the gloom is and men yearn 
For purer light, her quenchless watch-fires burn. 

May it be ours, still, though rough the ways 
The path of duty leads and faint the star 
67 


Of hope to light us through the darker days, 
Content to find where life’s down-trodden are, 
The heavy-burdened, whom to help and stay 
Shall guerdon be, more prized than those of yore 
Embattled knights from fields of conquest bore. 
Who tries his armor in the present fray 
Must have it steeled with truth and not with might 
Untouched by justice, for the common weal 
Demands for freedom and defense of right 
Conviction’s arrow more than clashing steel— 
And he who rides with calm, unfearing face 
The battle half hath won, and half the race. 

And thou, loved Alma Mater, ever kind, 

Truth’s fair abode, affection’s shrine thou art; 
’Twas naught save learning’s gifts we came to find. 
The head to train, but thou hath touched the heart. 
And, long as turns to youth’s most beauteous time 
Memory’s fond glance, the past in fresh array 
Shall rise before us, bright as yesterday— 

These scenes, these faces, the responsive chime 
Of fond-remembered voices; through the trees 
Faint glints of flickering sunshine, old farewells. 
Old hand-clasps still in ours, on the breeze 
The mellow tolling of the evening bells— 

All, all is over: may the finished page 
Hold naught to mar our glorious heritage. 


68 


THE BELOVED’S NEARNESS 
From the German of Goethe 

I think of thee, when bright the sunlight’s shimmer 
From ocean streams; 

I think of thee, when faint the moon’s pale glimmer 
On billows beams. 

I see thee, when down o’er far roads, like soot, weigh 
The dim dust-clouds, 

When the lone wanderer on the narrow footway 
The deep night shrouds. 

I hear thee, when afar, with muffled thunder, 

The surf rolls high; 

From the still, accustomed bower, whereunder 
I listening lie. 

I am with thee—so far art thou removed, 

Still art thou near. 

The sun sinks, and the stars shine, O beloved. 
Would thou wert here! 


THE NEW YEAR 

I know not what the year may bring 
Of joy or sadness, health or pain, 
Nor with what minor chords shall ring 
Its glad crescendo strain. 

Nor do I know what tedious ways 

Of humble toil my feet must press; 
Still mine shall be a song of praise, 

My hymn of thankfulness. 

Content since He, whose sovereign will 
The rolling centuries obey, 


Still reigns, and of life’s seeming ill 
The good doth make alway. 

The broken joys, the sundered ties, 

The cherished hopes unsatisfied— 
’Neath all His higher purpose lies. 

His love doth sure abide. 

So this new year, a gem impearled 

On time’s vast circle, still may be prove 
More fully to a war-scarred world 
His never-changing love. 


CRADLE SONG 

Bye, baby, bye low; soft be thy slumber, 

All the world ’round thee so peacefully lies; 

Like far-distant watch-fires the stars without number 
Twinkle and gleam o’er thy sleep-closed eyes. 

Down in the grasses chirps the young katydid, 
Fireflies their lanterns are setting aglow, 

Deep in the flower-cups quaint little elves are hid, 
Soft sing the breezes that over thee blow. 

Skipping and dancing adown the bright moonbeams 
Gay little sprites come with silvery horns, 

Blowing upon thee from Fairyland sweet streams 
Of music like that of its rose-tinted morns. 

So, little sleeper, dream on till the morrow’s 
First golden sunbeams over thee creep; 

Naught to thee now are its joys or its sorrows, 
Wrapped in the dew-covered mantle of sleep. 

70 


SUMMER RAIN 
In the city 

Who shall tell the story how the summer rain comes down, 

With its draughts of crystal coolness to refresh the parch¬ 
ing town, 

How its countless marching legions, earthward blown, with 
rhythmic beat. 

From the cloud-battalions forming, fast debouch on square 
and street, 

While the lightning’s lurid flashes and the thunder’s can¬ 
nonade 

Tell of heaven’s rear-guard action as its watery hosts 
invade. 

How their soft and gentle voices shame the turmoil and the 
din. 

As when old, remembered music folds life’s jarring dis¬ 
cords in, 

Till harsh Traffic’s diapason in the city’s rapt refrain 

Softens to the low susurrus of the patter of the rain. 

Over hut and palace falling, from Trade’s airy pinnacles 

To the slums’ remotest purlieus the refreshing torrent 
swells, 

W T ashes clean street, roof and court-yard, while, to swell 
the cleansing store, 

Fast from leading-pipe and gutter miniature Niagaras 
pour; 

Till the pavements, like old mirrors, newly glazed, reflect 
the day, 

As the flood down the deep canyons, seaward flowing, 
makes its way. 

How it enters brown old churchyards where for centuries 
the deep, 

Echoing tread of passing thousands ne’er has wakened 
them that sleep, 


71 


Weeps for death, but lo—where sorrow’s withered gar¬ 
lands long have lain, 

See Hope’s living green upspringing at the magic of the 
rain! 


In the country 

At its summons comes the memory of a home I used to 
know, 

Nestling on Vermont’s green hillsides in the days of long 
ago. 

Of a boy, who all would venture that dear haven to rewin— 

Out-of-doors, the storm approaching, home and mother’s 
love within— 

Glad to leave the sweltering hay-field and the tumult over¬ 
head 

For a cosy attic window and an author often read; 

How erelong the first drops falling, with a “pat-pat” on 
the roof’s 

Sloping pavement, slow, then faster, seemed the tread of 
elfin hoofs, 

Till they came like some vast army in a multiplied tattoo, 

As Heav’n’s deep cloud-cisterns opened and the flood came 
sifting through, 

Till, closed veiled by watery curtains, hill and valley, grove 
and plain. 

Sank from view and the old farm-house stood, an island 
in the rain. 

And the boyish fancy pictured how the meadow, hill and 
wood, 

Parched by July’s burning sunshine, fast drank of the 
pouring flood, 

How it bent the tender grasses and the flower-cups over¬ 
flowed, 


72 


Till the earth, drenched and repleted, shook it off by creek 
and road; 

How its sudden gusts surprising waving fields of oats and 
wheat. 

Bent to earth their lusty legions, leaving them in rout 
complete; 

How it sprayed the apple orchard, washed the highways 
and, in full, 

Wrought on upland, field and forest its refreshing miracle. 

Till the dark pines ceased their sighing and the willows 
to complain 

To receive bright coats of silver, newly minted by the rain. 

Soon across the soaking meadows, set with many a grassy 
pond. 

Came the mad brook’s sullen thunder from the misty vale 
beyond— 

A young Hercules imprisoned, laboring from his age-worn 
groove 

Swiftly to the brimming river its vast tribute to remove; 

Dashing, plunging, seething, roaring, like a giant ’neath 
the goad 

Of the rainstorm which each moment adds fresh burdens 
to its load; 

Swirling past huge rocks, and others shouldering from its 
downward way, 

Like a hurried sculptor, moulding strange forms from its 
beds of clay, 

Till, its rage spent, where the lowlands wait to check its 
mad advance, 

Its dark waters swirl and broaden to a new lake’s calm 
expanse, 

Till the setting sun’s mild radiance floods with light the 
watery plain 

And the kindled bow’s bright splendor marks the passing 
of the rain. 


73 


Spirit of God, on hearts aweary send abroad Thy latter 
rain; 

From our souls, grown weak with sinning, wash away 
each blot and stain. 

Quench unholy passion’s fires, bid all strife and discord 
cease, 

Till our lives, cleansed and replenished, know the beauty 
of Thy peace; 

And our eyes, o’er the dark valleys where thy healing 
streams have poured, 

See again hope’s rainbow gleaming and behold the risen 
Lord. 


THE HOME PORT 

(:To C. H. D.) 

I know a peaceful valley 
Far off among the hills, 

Where soft airs love to dally. 

And sparkle bright the rills; 

By sheltering slopes defended 
From Winter’s harrowing, 

By flowers and birds befriended 

When earth is sweet with spring. 

Thither, old friend, we’ll hie us, 

Our rough seafaring o’er, 

And let the storms sweep by us, 
Fast anchored close to shore. 

Our fears we’ll leave behind us, 

Of wrecks on raging seas: 

Dull Care shall never find us 
Up there among the trees. 

74 


We’re tired of towns and cities, 

Their worry, rush and noise, 

Of schools and school committees, 

Of errant girls and boys; 

Of stoking and of steering 

With life-belts at our sides, 

Of head-winds, strong or veering, 

Of fogs and shoals and tides. 

Across the shifting splendor, 

That gilds the evening sea, 

A voice, restrained, yet tender, 

Is calling you and me: 

“Too long by storms blown seaward, 
Of treacherous winds the sport, 
Your helms bend hard to leeward, 
Back to the old home port.” 

Fare, then, whom ocean favors; 

Its pearls and gold lie deep; 

And faint its wealth now savors 
To them that by it sleep. 

But now calm days await us 

And, ’spite of cloudy weather, 
Heaven send fair winds to take us 
To the home port together. 

LINES TO AN APRIL LADY 

Old Time’s a cheat, as Age today, 
Again, as radiant Youth he poses; 

From some he steals life’s bloom away. 
To you renews its roses. 

May many a budding April share 

With you the beauty of her flowers. 

And what must come of grief and care 
Be fleeting as her showers. 

75 


THE SUB-PREFECT AFIELD 


(Being a metrical version of A. Daudet’s “Le Sous-Prefet 
aux Champs ”) 

Coachman before and footman behind, 

Their ribands streaming before the wind, 

The sub-prefect in his tall cocked hat, 

His silken coat and his gay cravat, 

His striped trousers, with silver braid, 

And his nacred sword, with its shining blade, 

In a carriage fit for its honored load 
Takes his stately way down the dusty road; 

For Monsieur, the prefect must give today 
His speech at the fair of the Comhe-aux-Fees. 

“ ’Tis deuced hot in this Provence sun; 

’Twere well if the job were over and done/’ 

Quoth the sub-prefect ’neath the noontide glare 
As he fixes his notes in a pensive stare. 

“Chers citoyens ”—how the insects hum! 

“Dear citizens”—but the thoughts don’t come; 

Till soon he spies o’er his glasses’ rim 
Some little live oaks that beckon to him: 

“Come, rest in our shade this hot June day 
And write your speech for the Comhe-uux-Fees.” 

Even a prefect needs must yield 

To the potent charm of the wood and field: 

“Ho, Jean, Henri, at ease, while I 
Compose my speech in the wood hard by.” 

And, with striped trousers and sword and all, 
Monsieur responds to the sylvan call. 

The violets shy in the tender grass 
Shrink back to let the great man pass, 

The birds cease singing, the springs to flow, 

And this little world all murmurs low: 


76 


“What gay bird this, who comes to preen 
His ruffled plumes in our fresh demesne?” 

No whit disturbed, with his writing-case 
Spread o’er his lap at an oak tree’s base, 
Monsieur, with expectant pencil pokes 
At the nodding grass and the Muse invokes; 
“Dear citizens”—“Tu-whoo-tu-whoo,” 

Said a blinking owl to -a big hoopoe. 

And, one by one, in a merry rout, 

The hidden folk of the wood call out— 

“How bald he is!” the warblers trilled, 

“Is he wicked, too?”—and the small world thrilled, 
Till a nightingale who had filled with song 
The prefect’s gardens all season long, 

Her voucher, gave of his character. 

And from field and wood came a joyful stir, 

The birds ’gan singing and springs to flow 
And violets hid in the grasses there 
Their perfume shed on the summer air. 

See Monsieur slowly his pencil raise. 

As once again he his speech essays, 

But as he ponders: “O, what’s the use?” 

Calls a saucy bird, and the rustic Muse 
Of fairs and forums must veil her face. 

And yield to the spell of that woodland place. 
And when at sunset, the servants came 
To seek their master, for fear of blame. 

Monsieur the prefect, all disarrayed. 

And prone outstretched in the forest shade, 

With his striped trousers and sword and all, 

Was breathlessly writing a madrigal! 


77 


WHEN THE TIDE IS LOW 


The waves reach lovingly out to the sands. 

When the tide is low; 

Gentle the touch of their tremulous hands, 

When the tide is low; 

And many a shell whose rainbow hue 
Is softened and toned by the ocean’s blue 
Do they bring to the wanderer’s raptured view 
When the tide is low. 

And the old, old memories, they beckon to me, 
When the tide is low, 

As my bark glides over the evening sea 
And the winds of the haven blow; 

But one sweet, fond voice from the shining throug, 
Unvexed, unmoved by my sin and wrong, 

Calls back to me like an angel’s song, 

When the tide of life is low. 


THE SMOKY SPELL 
(September, 1898) 

At dawn, its light half seen through smoky air. 

The dim sun moves his lessening path along. 
Unheralded, save from the waysides where 

The sleepless crickets greet the day with song. 

At noon, a world close veiled in burning haze. 

The sun from cloudless skies no shadow throws, 
No chattering brook makes glad the dusty ways 

Where, in lone state, the golden rod still glows. 

In bosky uplands where the meadows end, 

A drumming partridge thrills the peaceful gale, 
78 


And flower-stalks, ripe to harvest, dumbly bend 
To the soft beating of its winnowing flail. 

By many a grange dim cauldron fires burn slow. 
Late gardens murmur with the hum of bees, 
Through the blue light the ripening pumpkins glow 
Like golden apples of Hesperides. 

It is a land of quietness and dreams; 

The sounds that break the slumbrous afternoons 
Make drowsy music, and the silence seems 

Haunted with Pan’s weird, immemorial tunes. 

No smouldering sunsets bring the twilight shade. 
While ceaselessly the pasture lanes along, 
Where once bird voices joined in serenade, 

The sleepless cricket trills his even-song. 


THE FLIGHT OF THE BIRDS 

From my western window at close of day, 

I saw by the light of the setting sun, 

Two feathered things in russet and gray. 

Awing for the Southland far away, 

Flying slow o’er the uplands dun; 

And the god of day, like Midas of old, 

Touched their flying forms and they turned to gold. 

And I thought, as I watched them fade from sight 
In the west on the far horizon’s rim. 

That something long cherished, pure and bright, 
Had gone with them on their wings of light 
And left all dark and dim; 

But I knew that the sound of the summer rain 
Would call them back to the North again. 


79 


Thus our hopes take wing and fly away 
Like the birds in the autumn haze; 

The purest and brightest—alike they go 
And why it is we may not know, 

But we trust that in better days. 

In a purer light and a softer air 

They’ll returned, fulfilled, sometime, somewhere. 


CENTENNIAL HYMN 

Today a glad hosanna 

Our mingled voices swell 
To Him, whose living manna 
On thy brave founders fell: 

And where, in earth’s broad regions, 

Thy wandering children be 
They bow in new allegiance, 

O Mother Kind, to thee. 

How clear each heart remembers. 

Bright through the mist of years— 
’Mid memory’s kindled embers. 

Each well-loved scene appears: 

The old “Mill” proudly gleaming, 

Fair Learning’s avatar; 

Beyond, still calmly dreaming, 
Mansfield, serene and far. 

Thine still the strength and beauty 
That fired the heart of youth, 

The strength that lies in duty, 

The beauty that is truth. 

And e’er thy sons shall cherish 
Who with thy nurture grew, 

Thy fair name, nor let perish 

The good Heaven bids thee do. 


80 


Still blows Truth’s free winds o’er thee, 
Westward in golden gleams, 

As in old days before thee 

The sunset glory streams; 

In years to come may dwindle 
Wrong’s legions in that light, 

And other strong hearts kindle 
To battle for the right. 


LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT 

What thoughts were thine when was first given to each 
The other’s name, with that fine grace that lends 
The rite its charm, and by such formal speech, 

They deemed us strangers, who were more than 
friends ? 

Did you recall that day of happy chance, 

When, ’mid strange crowds, the present, bare and lone, 
Bloomed radiant at the magic of a glance, 

As soul met soul and Love had claimed its own? 



81 


“CLOSE THE BOOK AND LET THE BREEZE” 


Close the book and let the breeze, 
Singing through the orchard trees, 
Speak from Nature’s heart a tone 
Poet’s lay has never known. 

What is wanting in the song 
Let the brook tell, all day long 
Making, with its silvery voice, 

All the listening glen rejoice. 

Or at dewy sunrise, hark 
To the skyward-soaring lark 
Telling thee what joys await 
Weary souls at heaven’s gate. 

Let, from brook and flower and tree. 
Mother Nature speak to thee 
And her fine poetic rage 
Put to shame the mimic page. 

Close the book and, closing, dream 
By some naiad-haunted stream, 

All her oracles can teach 
Far beyond our human speech. 

Close the book—what’s lacking there 
Time and Nature shall repair, 

Till, forgot, its simple lay 
In sweeter music dies away. 


82 










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